Paris, 1991. A 19-year-old student returns home. By morning she is dead — the first of seven women raped, tortured, and murdered by a predator who stalked the streets of eastern Paris for six years.

In this episode of A True Crime Podcast, host Alexander Lawson unravels the crimes of Guy Georges — the man the press called the Beast of the Bastille. From his early violence and repeated releases from prison, through a string of brutal killings that sparked city-wide panic, to the DNA breakthrough that finally stopped him, this is the full story of one of France’s most infamous serial killers.

Seven victims. One of the largest manhunts in modern French history. And a case that helped change the country’s approach to DNA evidence forever.

He was a devout Catholic, an elite civil servant, and a trusted insider at the heart of NATO. For nearly 20 years, Georges Pâques handed the West’s most sensitive military secrets to the Soviet Union—not for money, not for ideology, but in the name of “peace.”

In this episode of A True Crime Podcast, Alexander Lawson uncovers the remarkable story of one of the Cold War’s most productive and puzzling spies: the recruitment in wartime Algiers, the years of silent betrayal, the dramatic 1963 arrest, and the trial that nearly sent him to the firing squad.

A tale of intellect, ego, and the thin line between idealism and treason.

In a quiet Provençal villa, firefighters force open a door and find a mother and daughter bound, gagged, and slaughtered. The house is locked from the inside. Twenty-nine stab wounds. Two throats cut. And no DNA that matches the man everyone suspects.

Alexander Lawson investigates the crimes of Poncé Gaudissard — the bus driver, serial rapist, and suspected double murderer known as the Barbarian of Aix-en-Provence. A workplace connection. Identical knots. A pattern of violence stretching back decades. And a case that still divides opinion because the forensic evidence never quite lined up.

This is the story of Chantal and Audrey d’Amato… and the man who may have gotten away with more than we know.

On May 16, 1967, inside the sewing workshop of Nîmes Central Prison, a man known as “King Kong” sharpened a pair of scissors… then used them to kill a guard in front of nearly a hundred inmates.

Maurice Gateaux’s path of violence began years earlier in Algeria, continued with a fatal robbery in 1965, and ended with a life sentence that became the longest continuous detention in modern French history—51 years without interruption.

Host Alexander Lawson uncovers the forgotten story of a man whose intellectual disability repeatedly shaped his fate, yet never stopped the bloodshed. Three victims. One of France’s most extreme prison records. And a nickname that still echoes inside the walls of Nîmes.

July 15, 1983. A suitcase explodes at the Turkish Airlines check-in desk in Paris’s Orly Airport. Eight people are killed. More than fifty are injured. The bomb was never meant to detonate on the ground.

In this episode of A True Crime Podcast, Alexander Lawson examines the case of Varoujan Garabedian, the Syrian-born Armenian nationalist and ASALA operative who confessed to planting the device, received a life sentence, and was later pardoned by France and welcomed as a hero in Armenia.

A story of historical grievance, calculated violence, and the uneasy line between justice and politics.

A decorated hero of the Great War. A career officer of the French Foreign Legion. A holder of the Légion d’Honneur.

Then, in 1943, he put on the black uniform of the Waffen-SS.

In this episode of A True Crime Podcast, Alexander Lawson examines the life and crimes of Paul-Marie Gamory-Dubourdeau — the professional soldier who rose to command the first French SS volunteer brigade and later served in the SS Main Office in Berlin. From the trenches of World War I to the ranks of the Charlemagne Division, this is the story of a quiet, calculated betrayal that still unsettles France’s wartime memory.

How does a patriot become a collaborator of such high rank? Listen as we uncover the man who chose the swastika over the tricolour.

In November 1998, two women were murdered within eight days in eastern France. One body was pulled from a canal, weighted with sewer grates. The other was found locked in the trunk of a burned-out car. The man responsible had already killed before—and the justice system had already released him more than once.

This episode of A True Crime Podcast tells the full story of Jacques Maurice Fruminet, the French serial killer known as the man with a thousand and one faces. From his first brutal murder in a quiet Vosges village in 1980, through repeated releases, sexual assaults, and the final killing spree that ended only when he was caught with burns on his hands, host Alexander Lawson traces how a dangerous offender kept walking free—until three women paid the ultimate price.

A chilling case of violence, recidivism, and systemic failure.

A quiet road. A teenage girl walking home from school. A van pulls up… and she never makes it home.

Between 1987 and 2003, Michel Paul Fourniret — known as the Ogre of the Ardennes — and his wife Monique Olivier preyed on young girls and women across France and Belgium. Driven by a chilling obsession with virginity, the couple left a trail of shattered families and unresolved cases.

In this episode, Alexander Lawson examines the full scope of Fourniret’s crimes, the deadly partnership that enabled them, the investigation that finally stopped him, and the secrets he took to his grave.

He was a celebrated historian, a professor at the Collège de France, and a close friend of Gertrude Stein. Then Bernard Faÿ turned France’s greatest library into a weapon.

In 1940, under the Vichy regime, he built a secret card index of 60,000 Freemasons, seized their headquarters, and fed names to the Germans. Nearly a thousand men were deported. 549 never came home.

This is the story of the elegant intellectual who hunted human beings with fountain pens and filing cabinets—and never showed a trace of remorse.

Host Alexander Lawson uncovers the chilling rise, crimes, and escape of Marie Louis Emmanuel Bernard Faÿ.

In the industrial shadow of the Peugeot factories, a quiet foundry worker lived a double life. By day, Mohamed Faleh was a reliable colleague. By night, debts from gambling drove him to hunt with an axe. Three victims died. One survived the soft “chut” that came just before the blade.

This episode of A True Crime Podcast uncovers the brutal crimes of the man the French press called the Axe Killer — and the decades it took to put him away for good. Hosted by Alexander Lawson.